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Wilson's Stormy Petrel — Part 2
Images coming soon.
According to Brunnich, the Faro Islanders draw a wick through the body of the petrel, that is oily from the eating of much fat, and burn the poor thing as a lamp.
Among the many senseless stories sailors tell of the petrel is that it never goes ashore to nest, but carries its solitary egg under its wing until hatched. But the members of the Transit of Venus expedition in the Southern Ocean, several years ago, discovered a large colony of these birds nesting on Kergulen Island. Here-tofore, ornithologists, misled by Audubon, had confounded the nest of Wilson's with that of Leach's petrel. Nests containing one white egg each were found in the crevices of rock during January and February. In the latter month the author has seen the birds in great numbers off the Azores, but, unhappily, not on them, for the steamer did not stop there; however, it is not unlikely they nest on these islands, which would seem a convenient rallying place for the birds from the African coast and those that course along the Western Atlantic from Labrador to Patagonia. The young birds are fed by that disgusting process known as regurgitation, that is, raising the food from the stomachs by the parents, which Nuttall says sounds like the cluttering of frogs. Baskett writes in his "Story of the Birds": "The baby petrel revels in the delights of a cod-liver-oil diet from the start."
Ordinarily quite silent birds, these petrels sometimes call out weet, weet, or a low twittering chirp that might be written pe-up. But it is near its nest that a bird is most noisy; and until very recently the home life of this common petrel was absolutely unknown.
Leach's, the White-rumped, or the Forked-tailed Petrel, as it is variously known (Oceandroma leucorhoa) was the bird carefully studied by Audubon, but confused by him with Wilson's Petrel, in which mistake many ornithologists followed him. In size and plumage the birds are almost identical, but the forked tail of Leach's petrel is its distinguishing mark. The outer tail feathers are fully a half inch longer than the middle pair, making the bird look more swallow-like even than Wilson's.
Leach's petrels, while quite as common on the Pacific coast as on the Atlantic, have their chief nesting sites in the Bay of Fundy, while a few nest off the coast of Maine; for it is a more northern species than Wilson's, Virginia and California being its southern boundaries. Nevertheless it is by no means so common off the coast of New England and the Middle States, except around the lighthouses, as Wilson's petrel, that must migrate thousands of miles from the Southern Ocean to pass its summer with us.
Audubon noted that these petrels were seldom seen about their nesting sites during the day, but seemed to have some nocturnal proclivities; for they approached the shore after dark, and flew around like so many bats in the twilight, all the while uttering a wild, plaintive cry. But Chamberlain claims that one of the birds, usually the male, sits on its egg all day while its mate is out foraging at sea. "When handled," he says, "these birds emit from mouth and nostrils a small quantity of oil-like fluid of a reddish color and pungent, musk-like odor. The air at the nesting site is strongly impregnated with this odor, and it guides a searcher to the nest." Sailors have dubbed them with numerous vile names on account of this peculiar means of defense.
A few bits of sticks and grasses laid at the end of a tunnel burrowed in the ground, at the top of an ocean cliff, very much as the bank swallow constructs its nest, make the only home these sea-rovers know. Such a tunnel contains one egg, about an inch to an inch and a half long, and marked, chiefly around the larger end, with small reddish-brown spots. In most respects Leach's petrel is identical with Wilson's, and the reader is therefore referred to the fuller account of that bird.
TOTIPALMATE, OR FULLY WEBBED SWIMMERS
(Order Steganapodes)
Birds of this order belong chiefly to tropical or sub-tropical countries, and include the tropic birds, gannets, darters, cormorants, pelicans, and man-o'-war birds, representatives of each of these seven families at least touching our southern coast line, although only the cormorant is common enough north of the southern states to come within the scope of this book. The characteristic that separates these birds into a distinct order is the complete webbing of all the toes; the hallux, or great toe, which in many water-birds is either rudimentary, elevated, or disconnected from the other webbed toes, is in these species flat and fully webbed like the rest, a characteristic no other birds have.